BERTIE AHERN’S FORMER partner Celia Larkin has spoken of her belief that the former Taoiseach should have stepped down from office after a term and a half in power.
Expanding on a view expressed in the TV3 documentary The Rise and Fall of Fianna Fáil which will be aired tomorrow night, Larkin appeared on RTÉ Radio One’s Marian Finucane programme this morning to reveal that she often gave her former partner an ear-bashing.
She told the programme:
I gave him an earful regularly but that’s beside the point, I think.I said it at the time, I thought that a term and a half would have been enough in government for any Taoiseach I think and then to leave way for someone to come in with fresh ideas and new ideas.
Larkin said that Ahern, in power for 11 years in total, should possibly have finished when Ireland’s presidency of the EU came to an end midway through 2004.
Asked how Ahern responded when she expressed such a view to him at the time, she said she could not remember, “He’d kind of look at you and nod, and that would be it,” Larkin added.
Larkin, who split from the former Fianna Fáil leader in 2003, had words of praise for Ahern, telling the programme of his “forte” being negotiations and particularly his handling of the Northern Ireland peace process.
She continued: “It will be seen in history that we all benefited from the peace process and I’m not just labouring that as ‘Bertie was a great fella.’ People aren’t dying ever day in Northern Ireland as a result of the peace process. That’s getting lost now, but it will be seen again.”
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